Ghosts and Monsters
by cyberdigi
Summary: The Next part in Blue Child, covering Ghost Machine. Gwen is back and she'll find a way to speak with Jack.


**Disclaimer:** RTD and BBC (and all that it entails) owns them and all rights, if I owned them I would have fic writers doing the scripts, regardless of what RTD thinks (hmmm assassin!Ianto, Empath!Ianto, or vampire!Ianto or even all three as cannon, that'd be fun)

**A/N:** NOT GWEN FRIENDLY! You have been warned

**Ghosts and Monsters**

Gwen ducked into the alleyway to ensure no one saw her.

How DARE they lock her up. She had been released from Providence Park just a week ago, and no matter her arguing that Torchwood needed her, they would not release her. It must be a miracle that they were able to handle the sex gas; Owen was sure to have released it even without her there. It was she who had profiled Carys, after all.

But after four weeks of pleading and eventually playing along she was now free. She had to pretend even with her sweet, gullible Rhys. Ever since she was released he'd been poking at her, asking if she was sure she knew it was all a dream. The gullible fool...but she had managed to convince him, and if she had her way maybe she could just skip over him this time to get to Jack. It was amazing how easy it was to convince everyone that she thought her REAL life was a dream so they could release her, and not a moment too soon in her opinion. Because if she really was in the past, Torchwood would be finding the so-called "Ghost Machine," or whatever Jack had said it was.

That's where she was now—at the station where they missed the boy but got his coat and, with it, the tech. If she could just get that tech, it'd be exactly what she needed to talk to Jack.

She just had to wait for her moment.

OoOoOoOoOoOoOoO

Ianto looked at the jacket in his hands as Tosh exclaimed over the comms that he had him.

He looked in the pockets and pulled out what had to be the actual source of the rift energy they were tracking.

To his eyes the air appeared to bend around it. Well, not really the air, but that was the closest description in any tongue.

"Ianto, what do we have?"

"Not sure, some sort of tech," Ianto replied, handing the device to Jack. "It appears to have some temporal…Jack?" Ianto paused, seeing Jack frozen, staring at a far-off spot.

Ianto looked down at the device in his partner's hands and saw that it was now lit up.

Suddenly, Jack looked up, seemingly out of breath.

"Really, sir, what have I told you about pushing buttons?"

"I…I wasn't meaning to activate it. Just see where the activation was. I thought this button here was the activation. I was hoping this was an instruction guide."

"Right, 'cause all alien tech comes with instruction guides," Owen scoffed.

"You'd be surprised, some tech from certain centuries does. This reminded me of something similar-looking from my home century, a medical device used by the time agency. If you pressed that button it gave instructions. Obviously, it's not what I thought it was."

"Obviously, sir. Jack, are you alright?"

"I'm fine, just a bit shaken. I saw a young boy; he was alone and lost. I felt what he was feeling…" Jack trailed off, remembering his own time feeling lost and alone.

Ianto reached over, squeezing his hand.

"Interesting, but as I was trying to say before, you did what you were not supposed to—"

"Hey!" Jack interrupted. Ianto kissed his cheek to quiet him.

"The device seems to have some temporal properties. I think we should get it back to the Hub and figure this out more, and find that boy."

OoOoOoOoOoOoOoO

_Damn it!_ Why did Ianto have to be there and get the device?

She saw the boy running away

Wait—the boy. They should be going to find him. If she stuck close to him, she'd eventually find Torchwood.

The boy…Bernie, if she remembered right; he had a head start on her, but she recalled the general area in which he lived.

It'd be a few days, but Torchwood would come to them.

OoOoOoOoOoOoOoO

She had a strange dream last night. It didn't make sense and it was just a dream. But it didn't _feel_ like just a dream. Maybe the Ghost Machine she had taken from Bernie's flat while he was out was the cause.

She had used it a few times to see if she could figure out what happened to cause this mess, but she never saw anything useful.

But she felt she had to warn Jack; it was a good thing Torchwood would be here soon.

She was getting tired of staking out Bernie's flat.

OoOoOoOoOoOoOoO

"Owen, what is wrong? This isn't like you!" Tosh exclaimed as Owen paced a trail in her living room rug.

"That..that _man_," he spat. "He raped and murdered that girl, Lizzie. He needs to be punished! He shouldn't have been allowed to get away with it for so long."

"Yes, he did a horrible thing! He should have been punished long ago. Nevermind, there's not any evidence now that a court can use, this _isn't_ you. This isn't the man I lo…the man I know and care about."

Owen faced away from her, head down. Looking closely, she saw that he was shaking.

"Is this because of Katie?" she asked quietly.

Owen spun around to look at her, wild-eyed.

"Wha?"

"They do have a passing resemblance, and both were gone…taken…before their time," she continued softly.

Owen ran his hand through his short hair.

"Yes…no…I mean sort of. Damn it!" he collapsed into the easy chair.

Tosh sat down quietly, waiting for him to continue.

"It's not _just_ Katie. That _man_," he spat the word again, "committed one of the worst crimes a man can against a woman. Yes, Lizzie reminds me of Katie, but she also reminds me of you. If a man can do such a despicable act and get away with it once he could do it again, and that does _happen_. I felt her fear, her…I felt it and what goes through my mind is, that could happen to Tosh, to Katie, to any woman. And I can't _stand_ it. I know I'm a prat, I know you're the best thing to happen to me and without you I'd be trolling bars and sleeping with different women every night that I could. And I know there are so many men like him out there. But I can do something about _this_ one. And even though it's too late for Lizzie and he's so paranoid he doesn't leave his house to hurt anyone else, or that it doesn't stop other women today getting victimized, I want _him_ to have to suffer real consequences—not just one in his own head.

"I want there to be some sort of justice for Lizzie," he raised his head to look Tosh in the eye, "for any woman who's been brutalized, taken advantage of or crushed, and the people who hurt them got away with it."

Tosh's mind flicked to dank, bare, closed-in walls before she took his hand and said, "I understand."

OoOoOoOoOoOoOoO

Tonight was the night.

Torchwood was coming.

Ed was confronting Bernie, so she made her move; it was her job to save the boy, after all.

It was amazing how much like last time it was happening…

Just like last time.

OoOoOoOoOoOoOoO

"What the hell, Jack? I thought she was locked up?"

Ianto came over the comms to answer, "We received a report from Rhys that she had been released a little over a week ago. He's been evaluating her threat level and said it seemed as if the Providence Park doctors had convinced her it was a dream. It would seem she was fooling them all."

Jack and Owen looked on as the police and representatives for Providence Park were trying to force Gwen Cooper into the back of a white van.

Suddenly, she saw them.

"Jack! Jack! You have to stop them, they don't understand!"

"You folks know this one?" asked the constable.

"Never seen her," Jack replied as Gwen's face fell.

"Wait! Wait! Jack! I have to talk to you! Let me GO! A monster's coming. A monster, I tell you! A green monster!" Gwen screamed as she was forced into the van.

"Any idea what she's talking about?" Owen asked as they walked away from the crime scene of Ed Morgan's death.

"None, but given her innate abilities I want us on alert. It could have been a delusion, a literal vision, a literal non-dangerous vision she saw as a monster, or a representative vision."

"Agreed," Ianto continued over the comms. "She could have seen a peaceful entity she saw as a "monster," or even seen her actions but not her physical representation."

"Well, regardless, if a "monster" is coming I want us to be ready," Jack stated.


End file.
